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Post by domeplease on May 15, 2023 15:20:22 GMT -5
Love hearing about your adventures and all the places you visit pipps! You are the world's nicest person, Kaybli. Thanks for your kind words. I suspect my topics are of limited interest, but on a Miscellaneous BS thread we're all a bit off the leash, aren't we? Did someone say LEASH??? |
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Post by pippsheadache on May 15, 2023 15:50:48 GMT -5
"Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead!" No doubt you took a better route to Fort Morgan than Farragut. Sounds like a wonderful trip, Pipps! Joe Patti's Seafood Shop looks like my kind of place, as does McGuire's Irish Pub. You've unearthed a ton of memories with this post. As you probably know, the First White House of the Confederacy was built and owned by Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald's relatives. Poor Scott was awful at choosing the loves of his life. The first he never stopped loving despite her and her family's callous treatment and abject rejection of him. The second - Zelda - definitely drove him to an early alcoholic grave. Both debutants were Uber-wealthy, self-centered flappers, who viewed people of other social classes as different species. Zelda was especially cruel, once compelling Scott to ask his friend and confidant Hemingway to discretely evaluate him for any "short-comings." Papa reassured him that nothing seemed amiss or unusual, though he said it was difficult to determine "in repose." After Scott's death, Hemingway recalled the incident in print, comparing the sight to a 30.06 rifle shell. Unfortunately, like too any artists, Fitzgerald's works in death have attained a status and appreciation incommensurate with their financial returns when he was alive. The Great Gatsby probably sells more copies today. Though famous, Fitzgerald could not compete with the captains of industry and overcome the andogamy practiced by "those families" to keep and advance their power and status. As to staying in their home, no television is fine for me, but I must admit a weakness for air-conditioning - the greatest invention in history outside of electricity. As a boy, I heard lots of Hank Williams, Sr. My second oldest brother had a collection of cassette tapes with his entire works. Somewhere in Iowa, I have the same on compact discs. I remember cooking many times with that lonesome hillbilly cry helping me to stir a roux for an hour or more to get it black as tar without burning. Not an easy thing to accomplish without practice. Hank Williams, Jr. is not his father, but he is a fine artist in and of himself. I especially like his songs, "A County Boy Can Survive" and "Family Tradition." Good times, Pipps! Always a delight to hear of your travels and experiences! Definitely driving the coastal highway was easier than what Farragut had to go through. He was one of the rare Southern-born and raised Unionists, which must have made for some awkward family reunions. Rizz I never cease to be amazed at your grasp of American literature. One of my all-time literary heroes, H.L. Mencken, was like Hemingway also a good friend to Fitzgerald, and shared his view of Zelda. (Good knowledge on her family's connection to the White House of the Confederacy.) She was certifiable, but Fitzgerald was far too impressed by wealth and glamor and his obsession played no small role in his descent into extreme alcoholism. Hemingway was almost a model of personal discipline by comparison. For sure he was more famous than wealthy during his short life -- that's why he wound up pathetically churning out scripts in Hollywood at the end of is life. I sure don't have the chops to be evaluating his work -- it seems to my dilettante sensibility that "The Great Gatsby" was by leaps and bounds his best work -- the other novels just seem like watered-down versions of the same theme. Although they become a bit more interesting when you learn about the real-life people they were based on, especially the Murphys, of whose generosity Fitzgerald and Picasso and many other artistic lights of the era took full advantage. Other than the house he grew up in in St. Paul, I don't think he and later Zelda ever lived in any place for more than a year, which was just about his tenure in the house in Montgomery. BTW Helen Keller lived a few doors down. Insert tasteless joke here. We tracked their residences in France but it was a fool's errand because mainly it was just one hotel after another, getting tossed out either for their behavior or for not paying their bills. They even lived briefly in my neck of the woods in Wilmington, Delaware, sponging off another of their rich friends and living in a mansion that was torn down long ago. Last I heard, their grand-daughter Eleanor Lanahan was living in Desousa's town of Burlington. All anecdotes welcome, Matt. Concur on Hank Williams. To me he is one of the unquestionable giants of American music. Another tormented soul who had a form of spinabifida which drove him to drugs and drink because of the pain it inflicted. After his death at age 29, one of his doctors said that even without the destructive lifestyle, given the state of medicine in his day, he would have been unlikely to make it to 40 in any event. I think I like everything he ever recorded. Hank Jr. does a great job with the museum - he stops in frequently -- and had a really well-crafted statue of his father commissioned, and it stands in downtown Montgomery. I realize computer-generated effects have come a long way in the interim, but that late 80s video of Jr. singing "There's A Tear In My Beer" with his father is still pretty dramatic. The original clip was actually Hank Sr. singing "Hey Good Lookin'" on the "Kate Smith Show" from 1952. He never did a polished recording of "Tear" and it was not released during his lifetime. That TV appearance was one of the few he did that survives -- they play all of them at the museum, and it doesn't take very long to run through the set. Oh yeah, I agree with you on AC and its relative importance as a technological advance. In our case, we stayed in February so heat wasn't an issue. I think if you stay in the summer they will at least put some fans in the room. My guess is that on hot nights Zelda passed out in her underwear on the front lawn to sleep it off. |
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Post by inger on May 15, 2023 15:55:01 GMT -5
Love hearing about your adventures and all the places you visit pipps! You are the world's nicest person, Kaybli. Thanks for your kind words. I suspect my topics are of limited interest, but on a Miscellaneous BS thread we're all a bit off the leash, aren't we? They’re more interesting than: My dental visit. Dome’s sexual proclivities Tequila’s sexual proclivities Michcusejoe5’s baby photos Karl1958 trade proposals Noetsi’s lament of the bunt Noetsi’s low income claims (richer than Bezos) Noetsi’s other 443 laments And so on… (Not quite as exciting as the old Rizzuto/Michusejoe5 arguments, but what is?) we should have them on replay… (And there was my ass. In its time that was a grand subject)… Keep them coming… |
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Post by pippsheadache on May 15, 2023 16:03:28 GMT -5
You are the world's nicest person, Kaybli. Thanks for your kind words. I suspect my topics are of limited interest, but on a Miscellaneous BS thread we're all a bit off the leash, aren't we? They’re more interesting than: My dental visit. Dome’s sexual proclivities Tequila’s sexual proclivities Michcusejoe5’s baby photos Karl1958 trade proposals Noetsi’s lament of the bunt Noetsi’s low income claims (richer than Bezos) Noetsi’s other 443 laments And so on… (Not quite as exciting as the old Rizzuto/Michusejoe5 arguments, but what is?) we should have them on replay… (And there was my ass. In its time that was a grand subject)… Keep them coming… That's hilarious Inger. But your dental work has more universal application than a sojourn to Montgomery Alabama. |
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Post by inger on May 15, 2023 16:15:23 GMT -5
They’re more interesting than: My dental visit. Dome’s sexual proclivities Tequila’s sexual proclivities Michcusejoe5’s baby photos Karl1958 trade proposals Noetsi’s lament of the bunt Noetsi’s low income claims (richer than Bezos) Noetsi’s other 443 laments And so on… (Not quite as exciting as the old Rizzuto/Michusejoe5 arguments, but what is?) we should have them on replay… (And there was my ass. In its time that was a grand subject)… Keep them coming… That's hilarious Inger. But your dental work has more universal application than a sojourn to Montgomery Alabama. Not to a couple men named Tommie and Hank… 🤓 |
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Post by rizzuto on May 15, 2023 17:23:57 GMT -5
www.tigerdroppings.com/mlb/espn-asked-red-sox-player-about-his-dead-mom-while-playing-during-sundays-game/108100087/ESPN was once the place for sports' fanatics, history references, and a sense of humor. Chris Berman, a kindly corpulent history major from Brown University, came into your dorm room or den in a manner that real sports' fans appreciated - affability, excitement, integrity in reporting, wit, humility, and an understanding of the audience. I'm not sure what ESPN is now, except insufferably loud and overpaid preachers of self-aggrandizement, self-loathing, and hypocrisy. Professional wrestling in the guise of sports reporting. My mother died of a brain aneurism in her sleep at age 40. I was two years old. By the time I started junior high school, I was world-weary from the innumerable explanations ranging from "No, you cannot call my mother" and "I would prefer not to write a letter for Mothers' Day" and "That's right, my mother is deceased." The latter a word I learned from a form I once saw my father fill out or as the Brit's would say, fill in. How amazingly unaware would Karl Ravitch have to be - and he may be the best of what remains at ESPN - as a Mothers' Day nationally-televised game-time announcer to ask a player on the field during a game - a routine that has grown irritatingly tiresome - about his dead mother? This is so close to the joke, "Other than that Ms. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?" that it reads like an "Onion" parody or an old "National Lampoon" satire. Gentlemen, we are ever so closely careening toward the world's last rational man.
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Post by inger on May 15, 2023 17:58:11 GMT -5
www.tigerdroppings.com/mlb/espn-asked-red-sox-player-about-his-dead-mom-while-playing-during-sundays-game/108100087/ESPN was once the place for sports' fanatics, history references, and a sense of humor. Chris Berman, a kindly corpulent history major from Brown University, came into your dorm room or den in a manner that real sports' fans appreciated - affability, excitement, integrity in reporting, wit, humility, and an understanding of the audience. I'm not sure what ESPN is now, except insufferably loud and overpaid preachers of self-aggrandizement, self-loathing, and hypocrisy. Professional wrestling in the guise of sports reporting. My mother died of a brain aneurism in her sleep at age 40. I was two years old. By the time I started junior high school, I was world-weary from the innumerable explanations ranging from "No, you cannot call my mother" and "I would prefer not to write a letter for Mothers' Day" and "That's right, my mother is deceased." The latter a word I learned from a form I once saw my father fill out or as the Brit's would say, fill in. How amazingly unaware would Karl Ravitch have to be - and he may be the best of what remains at ESPN - as a Mothers' Day nationally-televised game-time announcer to ask a player on the field during a game - a routine that has grown irritatingly tiresome - about his dead mother? This is so close to the joke, "Other than that Ms. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?" that it reads like an "Onion" parody or an old "National Lampoon" satire. Gentlemen, we are ever so closely careening toward the world's last rational man. I get where you’re coming from. Mother’s Day is fine in its place, Father’s Day too. I used to gift my mom on Mother’s Day, and later my father, after I met him. And when my father got too sick to take flowers to his step mother’s grave, I drove the 2.5 hours to do it for him, even though I never met her nor had the slightest inkling what she looked like. My relationship with neither parent was one to be overly gushing and celebratory for. I can’t join the gushers that brag of having the greatest of either. My son will surely not contact me on Father’s Day. Pretty much just another day… youtu.be/JaRY9h9932k |
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Post by kaybli on May 16, 2023 1:28:49 GMT -5
A cool bunting practice video that inger wanted me to share:
Where's noetsi?
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Post by kaybli on May 16, 2023 14:23:06 GMT -5
My ALL-TIME Favorite Paper Ad (for used Aston Martins vehicles):
View Attachment
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Post by domeplease on May 16, 2023 15:26:50 GMT -5
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Post by rizzuto on May 16, 2023 17:42:48 GMT -5
I like bodies not my own, too, preferably the lithe, athletic female form. Why would I like my body? |
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Post by inger on May 16, 2023 18:14:03 GMT -5
I like bodies not my own, too, preferably the lithe, athletic female form. Why would I like my body? There’s asexual Homosexual Bisexual Metrosexual Polysexual I guess that would be monosexual… |
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Post by inger on May 19, 2023 10:14:08 GMT -5
We’re looking into replacing some of all of our windows. I went to an Amish manufacturer about 20 miles from here. The guys are coming to measure in a few minutes. Their names are Noel and Joel. What are the odds? And the my name being the reverse of Noel.
Billy Noel and Billy Joel?…😂
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Post by desousa on May 19, 2023 10:17:18 GMT -5
Gloria and I watched "Air" the other night. Thought it was pretty good and interesting.
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Post by pippsheadache on May 19, 2023 12:42:17 GMT -5
Just so you guys don't think I've bought the farm -- I won't be around much starting Sunday for about three weeks. Mrs. Pipps and I are jetting off to a completely undeserved jaunt to one of my favorite destinations, Switzerland. Please hold your applause. Not sure if any of you have been there, but it's pretty much like the impossible photographs and films you see. And the trains do run on time -- only Japan can compare -- and everybody does what they're supposed to do and they do it efficiently and politely.
I always look for a baseball connection anywhere I go, but I have only found one MLB player from Switzerland, an early 20th-century pitcher for Cleveland and for the 1914 "Miracle Braves" of Boston named Otto Hess from Bern. I think he must have left just before Einstein was moving in. There is a Swiss Baseball and Softball Federation and the national team will be playing for the coveted Alpine Cup in Zurich in July, so we will have to miss that one. If I find any evidence of baseball in the Alps I will post it here immediately.
Anyway, I'll be on here the next couple of days, but perhaps a bit distracted with the usual last-minute urgencies that are almost never really urgent. One thing I have learned from a lifetime of travel is that if you have a passport and a credit card with a respectable limit, everything gets taken care of.
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